Haunted By Dreams Deferred
by Person4
Summary: Balthier may have thought that he could slip away with the Strahl with only a note left behind to make it clear he and Fran had survived, but Vaan isn't about it let him get away with it. Balthier/Vaan, AU from RW and the tiniest bit from XII's ending .
1. Prologue

**Note:** This story was originally written for the Secret Santa fic exchange at the leading_men community on livejournal. If you want, you can go there and read the complete story at any time (although you need to join the group to see it)! But over here I'm going to be posting it in parts, a chapter a day, instead of putting it all in a giant hunk with the chapters seperated by break marks the way it is over there.

The only difference, aside from being broken into chapters, is that a couple of scenes will be mildly edited to fit the ratings rules here.

* * *

The first thing that hit Vaan when he saw the empty hanger where the Strahl should have been was fear. The main thing that he, that _they_, had left of Balthier, and of Fran, was gone. It was gone, and it was _his fault_, because he'd chosen to rent a hanger that he knew he'd still be able to scrape up enough gil to afford even after the money he'd made by collecting loot and taking hunts all the way from The Feywood to Archades ran out. Because he hadn't had enough faith that the sky pirates would eventually return to rent one that he'd only be able to rent for a year or two but which would be near impossible to break into, and because he'd been too proud to ask Ashe to keep it where the few royal airships had once been housed when watching over it was supposed to be his responsibility.

Because he'd been willing--even in this small way, even though the thought made bile rise up in the back of his throat and his heart splinter and seep in the spot that had only just begun to heal from the pain of Reks' death--to give up on them.

The fear had given way to a fierce, uncontrollable, joy when he'd spotted the letter attached to one of the light crystals and realized what it meant. Anyone in the Aerodrome close enough to their hanger to hear him and Penelo then had probably thought they'd gone mad, with the way they'd whooped and whirled and danced wildly across the empty room, one moment laughing so hard they could barely stand, the next hovering on the edge of bursting into sloppy, giddy, tears. All Vaan could think, again and again, was '_He's alive, he's alive, he's alive,_' that single train of thought only faltering when he guiltily realized it should be '_they're_ alive.'

That night, for the first time in ages, he and Penelo snuck into the palace so they could drag Ashe off to celebrate with them. For just a few hours everything was back to the way it had been a year before, happiness erasing every trace of the new distance that had grown between her and them in that time.

It wasn't until the middle of the night, when he was lying in bed finally beginning to calm down, that his emotions shifted for the last time. "Wait a minute..." he said, staring up at the ceiling of his room, the way Balthier had chosen to communicate with them finally really sinking in. "A note? He leaves us thinking they might be dead for a _year_, and when he finally decides to let us know they're okay all he does is leave a stupid _note?_ No way is he getting away with that!"

He was on his feet and out the door almost before he knew what he was doing, the anger that washed through him at the thought propelling him towards the city's east gate. He knew that Fran and Balthier probably would have taken the Strahl off to the middle of nowhere if they were trying to hide out for some reason, but with a year of sky piracy under his belt he'd picked up enough slyness to realize it was just as likely that they would have counted on him thinking that and laughed their way to another Aerodrome assuming he'd never think to check it. Anyway, he needed _some_ place to start looking, and there was a lot more wide-open spaces in the world than there were Aerodromes, so Nalbina it was.


	2. Chapter One

By the time he stumbled onto the streets of Archades, his legs killing him because he'd forgotten that the commercial flights wouldn't fly there from Bhujerba and had to stow away in a cramped cranny of a merchant's ship, he'd realized that his first choice had been the wrong one. There had been no sign of them in any of the Aerodromes; none of the air stewards who'd come to recognize him during his year with Balthier's ship commenting on the Strahl showing up without him, no faint shimmer of her camouflage in the sky above that only visible to those who knew to look for it, no Nono perched patiently on one of the ticket counters waiting until it was time to take-off. He'd have to go at his search another way.

Luckily he still kept his sandalwood chop tucked at the bottom of his money pouch, more out of forgetfulness than an attempt to be prepared for anything. One flash of it was enough to take him anywhere, although using it always left him confused about how exactly they could consider it currency when nobody ever took it from him in exchange for whatever he wanted to do.

His conclusion, as always, was that Archadians were just weird.

His chop took him to the palace gates and no further, but that was enough. Some acting skills were one of the talents he'd developed during his time as a sky pirate, or at least acting skill; one single useful role that he could slip into as easily as breathing. Well, at least as long as he didn't need to keep it up for too long or answer any questions he hadn't come up with an answer to beforehand. He threw himself into it as he approached the palace.

He walked up to the first guard he saw as if he belonged there, the gun he carried leaning casually against his shoulder. "You there!" he called to him, ignoring the way the man's face twisted at being addressed that way by someone so scruffy-looking. "I need someone to fetch Judge Gabranth, about a bounty. Tell him Vaan Ratsbane is here to see him, he'll know what it means." It rankled him to use the stupid nickname Old Dalan had given him for this, but it never felt right to think up a name based on the things he'd done that were actually important because none of them had been done on his own. It was bad enough that his name was the only one people mentioned whenever they talked about the hunts he and his friends had all completed together, an unfortunate side-effect of his being the only real _hunter_ in the group and the one who always dealt with the petitioners. He wasn't about to start swiping all the credit on purpose.

The man spat at his feet, but Vaan didn't care. It wasn't like Imperials hadn't spat at worse parts of him in the past. "This time of night, no one gets in the palace. I don't care _whose_ 'bane' you are."

Vaan didn't let his cocky act break for a moment, just swayed back on the balls of his feet and shot the man his most crippling glare, one carefully copied from Ashe on a bad day. "You'll make an exception, unless you _want_ to be on the bad side of one of the only Judges Magister you have left."

The man remained unmoved, but Vaan noticed another guard slipping away as quietly as he could in full plate mail. It looked like they weren't all so set in their ways that they'd rather risk a superior's wrath rather than change their routine.

"Tell me, whelp: what is this news that's so important you expect me to wake one of the most important men in the empire over it in the dead of night?" the man asked.

"Top secret," Vaan said smoothly. Then a sudden thought struck him and he lowered his voice to a conspiratorial whisper, "but I'll give you a hint. It has to do with a certain 'prodigal son.'"

"The Bunansa boy?" the man asked, the sound of his voice clearly startled even through the warping of the tinny sound his helmet gave it.

"That's the one," Vaan replied, barely holding back a laugh at the thought of anyone calling Balthier 'boy', especially someone who sounded like he couldn't be any older than him.

For a minute he thought the man was wavering, but in the end his resolve held firm. "Come back with the sun. We'll consider it then."

Luckily Basch chose to appear then, standing straight and clear-eyed though his hair was still mussed from sleep and he'd clearly just pulled on the clothes that were closest to hand before following the man who'd fetched him back to the gate. Nobody who hadn't spent as many mornings around him as Vaan had would even notice the subtle signs that all he wanted to do crawl back into bed.

"That's enough," he said to the guard. "Allow him in."

The man straightened up, startled, and it was obvious that he'd never actually thought Vaan was someone important enough to allow into the palace. "Yes sir, Judge Gabranth," he said, and a moment later the gates were opening to Vaan.

"Ratsbane," Basch said, stepping up to him and looking down at him. There was only the tiniest twitch at the corner of his mouth, invisible in the darkness of the night to anyone further from him than Vaan, to give away that he was holding back a smile.

"Judge Magister," Vaan replied, still holding onto his act for the benefit of the guards although it was harder than ever. Whenever someone who actually _knew_ him saw him performing his cocky outlaw routine it became a struggle not to burst into laughter like a little kid who'd been caught doing something naughty.

"Come. We'll speak somewhere away from prying ears." Basch turned and began walking back in the direction he'd come from. "Return to your duties, men."

"You heard the man. Chop chop!" Vaan called back to the men airily as he followed. He knew that he probably shouldn't still like poking at imperial soldiers so much now that, miracle of miracles, he was actually _friends_ with the one on the Empire's throne, but he figured that Larsa should just be glad that he'd stopped robbing them blind whenever he had half a chance.

"Now," Basch said once there was some distance between themselves and the gate, in a voice pitched low so as not to carry, "what news do you bring that's of such import it couldn't wait for the morning?"

Even though he was still angry--angry enough that he fully intended to punch the smirk off Balthier's face as his very first action when he saw him again--he couldn't resist the grin that spread across his face wide enough to make his cheeks hurt at the chance to say the words, "Balthier and Fran are alive."

It was gratifying to see the way Basch went dead-still at the words, an answering smile slowly beginning to tug up the corners of his mouth.


	3. Chapter Two

"I will travel with you," Basch said firmly later that day, after Vaan had explained everything that had happened to him and Larsa and began preparing to leave. The look on his face made it clear that he wasn't planning on taking 'no' for an answer.

But Vaan knew that there was no way he could match the stubbornness of an orphaned Dalmascan pickpocket.

He started out with the friendly approach, laughing while he shook his head and held up his hands in a warding-off gesture. "You don't need to do that, big guy," he said. "Come on, I'm me! You know that I know when to fight and when to run away."

"No one doubts your abilities, Vaan, nor your bravery. But you've grown accustomed to judging your strength as one in a group, and I fear that you'll be in for a rude awakening if you forget yourself and try your strength against a beast that can't be easily felled by a man alone."

"That was a year ago! These days I don't even have _Penelo_ with me half the time when I go on hunts, as long as I'm not going too far away from Rabanastre." He decided that it was time to try another tactic, and appeal to Basch's sense of duty. "Anyway, what about Larsa? You can't just run off with me and leave him alone."

"Actually, I agree with Basch," Larsa chose that moment to cut into the argument. "The world will not end if Zargabaath takes his place by my side for a week or so."

"Hey! Whose side are you on?" Vaan ask, giving Larsa a friendly shove, not caring at all that people who didn't know better would think the action could spark an international incident.

"This isn't a matter of sides, Vaan. We're only concerned for your safety. Although..." Larsa gave Vaan a gently chiding look that made him look much older than his thirteen years and made Vaan feel a little sorry for any of his advisors who had to face down that look while trying to convince him of anything he didn't agree with (though not _too_ sorry, since he'd trust Larsa's judgment of what was right or wrong over anyone else in the Empire's), "If you wish for me to agree with you, you might try not using me as a bargaining chip."

Vaan's attention immediately shifted from his argument with Basch to reassuring Larsa that he wasn't one of the million assholes in the world who wanted to use him. "Sorry, Larsa. You _know_ that's not what I think of you. I just really want to do this on my own."

Basch sighed, and rested a heavy hand on Vaan's shoulder. "Vaan. Believe me when I say that I do understand why you would wish to be alone when you greet Balthier. I even understand that you might feel as if those of us whose relationships with him weren't as strong as your own don't deserve to be the first to see them. He was, after all, your--"

"My mentor!" Vaan cut in, laughing with false brightness. "He and Fran were my mentors, and I need to show them how strong I've become since the last time they saw me." Basch gave him a knowing look that made Vaan shift uncomfortably, but didn't press the matter. "Look, I'm planning on taking chocobos everywhere anyway, and I'm not going to forget to switch to a fresh one whenever I've got a chance, so it's not like fighting's gonna be an issue anyway. Plus, _seriously_ Basch, if you keep this up you're officially gonna be mothering me more than Penelo does. Do you _really_ want that?"

He had conveniently 'forgotten' to ever mention that the only reason Penelo hadn't mothered him over this decision was because she didn't know about it.

Both of them were examining him closely now, making him want to squirm more than ever. He could _feel_ them judging him, deciding whether or not he was really up to the task to doing this alone. It made him feel like he was a little kid again, begging Reks to let him run to the bazaar on his own when he didn't want to wait until his brother had a free moment; an especially annoying feeling when one of the people causing it was years younger than him, even if he _was_ an emperor.

Finally something seemed to pass silently between the two of them, and Basch bowed his head slightly, giving in. "Very well, Vaan, if you'll accept two conditions. First, that you'll not venture anywhere too deadly on you own; the Necrohol, Giruvegan, the Pharos, you should know well by now the type of area I speak of. If you've not found them after checking all other places, return and I'll accompany you on the rest of your journey."

Vaan frowned, but knew that he wouldn't be able to fight this one if he wanted to get out of Archades without Basch tagging along. "Fine, I promise I'll get you before I go to any of those places."

"Then secondly, you'll wait long enough for us to outfit you with a new weapon and armor before you go. You've hardly come equipped for a long journey."

"Uh, yeah," Vaan said, looking down at himself. When he'd run out of his home he'd only taken the time to tug on his regular clothes and grab his gun and moneybag before leaving. Armor would have taken too much time. "I kinda left in a rush. Armor I'll take, but I'm keeping the gun."

"Vaan, you have to admit that it's hardly strong enough to do much good in a fight," Larsa said. "I'll have the entire armory opened to you if you wish, I can have one of our marksmen show you to the guns if you've come to prefer them."

Vaan cradled the gun to himself possessively, backing away from them. "It might not have the best firepower in the world, but I've got good ammo in it. It'll be fine. I don't want any other weapon."

"A dagger at your belt at least, Vaan," Basch entreated him. "You can easily carry both."

Vaan smoothed his hand down the barrel of the gun, then sighed and relaxed. "A dagger. It's a deal."

Larsa beamed at them both, clearly glad that it hadn't come to a real fight between them. "And _I'll_ have one of our royal chocobo chargers readied for you. They have more endurance than the birds raised for travelers. With care, one will last you all the way to the Hunter's Camp on the Phon Coast."

"Thanks, Larsa," Vaan said, smiling back. "...Thanks both of you. I'll make you a promise right now. You're going to Ashe's coronation next month, right? Well, I _swear_ you'll see Balthier and Fran there, if I have to drag them in by their hair!"


	4. Chapter Three

As he left the city behind, Vaan thought about Basch telling him that no one doubted his bravery, and wondered a little what he'd think if he knew what exactly Vaan considered to be the bravest moment of his life.

They had found a hot spring in the Paramina Rift, and after the girls had taken their turn bathing Balthier had dragged him off to it. Basch had stayed behind to set up their camp and Larsa to talk with Penelo, so it had ended up being just the two of them.

"Just because you're a street urchin doesn't mean you need to _smell_ like one," Balthier had said as he'd pulled Vaan along, apparently thinking that he'd need some convincing to wash himself off. Vaan had been weirdly pleased at knowing just that once Balthier was dead wrong about something; Vaan might not have been the biggest stickler for cleanliness most of the time, but he'd felt like he was freezing his _skin_ off on that snowy mountain. It had taken all his willpower to be polite and allow the princess and the other girls to take advantage of the nice, steaming-hot, water first. If he'd had his way he would have stripped down in front of all of them, modesty be damned, and dove straight into the spring the second they'd spotted it.

Later, he would wonder if Balthier had made the excuse because he'd known what he was inviting by bringing Vaan there alone, and his pride had made him grasp for some other reason for his actions. But at the time Vaan had just been annoyed by the insult. "Hey! I'm not a street urchin, thank you very much. I have a home with my own bedroom and everything."

"Truly, you are blessed with an abundance of wealth," Balthier had said dryly, then begun to strip when they'd reached the edge of the spring.

"And don't you forget it," was Vaan's cheerful reply. He'd been too happy at feeling the heat wafting off the water to bother staying annoyed, and all his attention had turned to getting into it as fast as possible.

The moment he was in he had dunked his head under, surrounding himself completely in the warmth. Wanting to stay under there as long as his breath held out, but knowing he'd look weird (or possibly drowned) if he just stayed still, he had flailed his way forward in his best attempt at swimming across the spring underwater.

When he'd finally reached the point where he had to either surface or let his lungs explode from the lack of air, the first thing he had heard when his head broke through the top of the water was Balthier's laughter and he'd realized that he had failed badly in his goal of not looking weird.

"Is _that_ what they consider swimming in Dalmasca, Vaan?" Balthier had asked, quickly gaining control over his chuckles.

"Oh, shut up," Vaan had said, wiping the water away from his eyes. _He'd_ thought that he had done fine; his kicking and arm waving had moved him a couple of yards anyway. "I'd like to see _you_ do any better if you'd spent your whole life in a desert. It's not like there's anywhere to go for lessons!"

Then he had looked up to glare at Balthier, and abruptly realized that he'd never really had a chance to look at the man naked before. Sure, they'd changed in front of each other often enough on their journey, but there'd been no lingering nudity then. Just quick scrambling into their nightclothes before it was time to sleep, or back into their regular outfits with the sun, always in a rush to grab every moment of rest that they could or to get moving on their quest again without any delay.

Looking at Balthier then, where he'd been sprawled out across a rocky ledge on the edge of the spring without any trace of modesty, saying something that was probably yet another insult but which Vaan's ears had never made sense of, Vaan had been struck by a sudden desperate burst of _want_.

It hadn't been an unfamiliar feeling at all. As far as Vaan knew everyone like him--all of the lowest class boys and girls throughout Rabanastre, left orphaned and penniless by the war--were filled with it often. When you could afford to have nothing but desires, those desires would come fast and hard and often, ignited by just the smallest glimpse of something that you hadn't even realized you needed until all of a sudden it was the only thing you could think of. They would hold those desires tightly to their heart, knowing that they'd never be fulfilled, but dreaming that maybe, someday...

And having any dream at all, even an impossible one, made the wanting worth it.

But Vaan wasn't just an orphan. He was a _thief_, and that make one important difference. When he saw something he wanted within hand's reach, he'd reach out and _grab it_, quick as a flash, then hold it tightly to himself so no one could take it away again.

The bravest thing he'd ever done up until that point was reaching out to press his hand against the flat muscles of Balthier's stomach.

Just a moment later it had changed again, and his bravest moment became _continuing_ to touch him, even when Balthier's mouth had snapped together in mid-sentence with enough force that Vaan could hear his teeth click together, his body had gone tense, and he'd given Vaan a distant, judging, look that he had never seen on Balthier's face before but couldn't imagine meant good things.

Vaan had gulped, taken a deep breath, then brought his other hand up to skim along Balthier's thigh. He'd had no idea what he was doing, but resolved that he wouldn't give up on it until Balthier outright pushed him away. Or at least told him to knock it off.

Then all at once he looked as though he'd come to a decision and relaxed. When he reached out to Vaan, instead of the shove the boy was expecting he grabbed him and dragged him onto his lap. "Very well then. If you're certain."

And that was all that he had said before tilting Vaan's head back and kissing him breathless.


	5. Chapter Four

Vaan had been lucky at the Phon camp, and found a farmer-turned-hunter willing to trade a chocobo that had been bred for the plow for the worn out charger. He possibly shouldn't have given away Larsa's gift to him, but _he'd_ been the one to tell Vaan where he should switch birds, and it was his own fault for not providing any instructions on how to get the other one back to him. It wasn't like Vaan could just walk up to an imperial soldier and ask them to drop it off in Archades the next time they went home; they'd think that he'd stolen it for sure, and that was a mess he didn't want to deal with.

His new mount was much better for his purposes anyway. It would never have the speed of any chocobo bred for riding, but it made up for it in massive amounts of stamina. Carrying him on its back all day was nothing to it compared to spending that time plowing a field, and it was perfectly happy to stay with him as long as he could provide it with greens and water.

At least it had seemed that way, until he reached the exit he planned to take from the Salikawood. There it stopped dead in its tracks, and refused to move an inch further no matter how much he urged it on. With it's entire body trembling beneath him, Vaan realized that he just couldn't be enough of a bastard to keep trying to force it forward.

"Okay. It's all right," he said soothingly, sliding off its back and walking around in front of it. It bumped its head against his chest, 'warking' quietly, and he scratched at its neck. "We'll take you back to where the Bombs used to hang out. Nothing'll bother you there."

And just to make sure of it, after hitching the chocobo to a tree and seeing that it had food and water, he ran out and killed every last Antares he could find in the area to make sure the scent of fresh prey wouldn't overwhelm the fear he knew all the creatures in the area still felt towards the bower the King Bomb had once lived in. It was only after he was _sure_ his mount would be safe that he finally continued on with his journey.

Vaan couldn't help but feel a little guilty when he took his first steps out onto the Deadlands, knowing what Basch would think if and when he found out that not only had he been there alone, but it was the place that he had sped straight to as quickly as he could after leaving Archades. He did plan on keeping his promise, but only to the letter, not the spirit, and if Basch had wanted Vaan to stay out of more than just the three places he'd specifically mentioned he really should have made sure to get a clearer promise out of him. Vaan _was_ a sky pirate, after all, and twisting words to their own advantage was one of the things pirates did.

It wasn't like he _wanted_ to mislead his friend. He couldn't even claim that Basch was being over-protective; if the situation had been reversed and Vaan had known one of his friends might be putting themselves in danger, he would have held on with his _teeth_ and made them drag him all the way there if that was what it took to keep them from going alone. The problem was that if Balthier and Fran were trying to hide, as was obviously the case, and they hadn't decided to go with doing it in plain sight, than they must be lying low somewhere that no one with an ounce of sense would want to visit. And there was no place that fit that description more than the Nabreus Deadlands.

But he wouldn't be stupid about it, and go barging into danger without assessing the situation first. He had learned a _little_ patience after all he'd been through, and that patience was bolstered by the knowledge that he'd never see Balthier and Fran again at all if he got himself killed at the start of his search because he didn't take two seconds to make a plan.

He tore across the Greencrag with a speed born from years of pick-pocketing in the Muthru Bazaar, a habit that would have made the last few moments of his life as painful as they were short if he'd ever been slow enough to get caught by the wrong person with the wrong purse in his pocket. He could _feel_ the Baknamy rising behind him, but he didn't falter and he didn't look back, just focused harder than ever on making sure that he was taking the path of least resistance, that every time he put a foot down it was on solid ground.

Even he was a little surprised at just how fast he managed to dart to the safety of the next area, leaving the Baknamys chattering and shrieking behind him. He knew that he'd be safe where he was now, at least for a little while; the goblinish creatures might be as evil as they came and more than half-mad, but their odd society had its own type of structure. They wouldn't leave the space they were meant to be patrolling, even if he walked right to its invisible border and made faces at them.

He forced himself to sit down and wait for his heartbeat to slow and his breathing to steady before he did anything else. He wasn't done running yet, and, if he was lucky, when he started again he wouldn't be able to stop for another break nearly so quickly.

When he finally looked around he almost managed to miss seeing the Strahl in the sky. Just like everywhere else he was searching for the slight hint of its camouflage shimmering against the sky, something which proved to be impossible to see in a place that so little sunlight reached, and he was so focused on searching for it that his eyes skipped straight over what he _should_ have been looking for twice before spotting it. When he finally did, he smacked himself in the forehead at how dumb he had been; the way that the thick mist which shrouded the Deadlands bent around the ship made a clear outline of it in the air, and he'd been so certain that it would be almost impossible to see that he hadn't even noticed it.

Then he noticed _where_, exactly, the Strahl was hovering over, and groaned aloud. "You just _had_ to park over the hill of a million zombies, didn't you, Balthier?" he groused to the air. "Did you really think that'd be enough to make us give up if anyone decided to follow you this far?"

He squatted back on his heels as he contemplated his next move. It was far from the best spot he could have had as his destination--he'd have to manage to run across pretty much the entire Deadlands, and then there'd be those million zombies on his heels when he finally reached the mooring line--but it could have been worse too. There was a spot close to the last stretch where he'd be able to stop safely to rest again and patch up any wounds he wasn't quick enough to avoid, and the only route he knew of to the hill involved passing through a section of swamp so out-of-the-way that even the monsters rarely seemed to bother using it so he could slow to a walk for just a little bit.

Still, for the first time since he'd leapt out of his bed Vaan wished that he had gone to nab Penelo and bring her with him, or had accepted Basch's offer of aid, instead of being so dead-set on making this journey on his own. They could have watched each others back, instead of him just having to hope his hardest that nothing he couldn't dodge would manage to outrun him.

But he didn't wish it hard enough to turn around and return to his chocobo, and then to Archades for aid, and a moment later he was ready to run once more.

He was off like a shot before he even had a chance for more doubts.


	6. Chapter Five

"Open the hatch, open the hatch, oh God Nono _open the hatch!_" Vaan yelled at the top of his lungs as he darted around the last curve on the path to the summit of the hill. What felt to him in that moment like an entire country worth of dead people were at his heels, and more were rising around him with every step he took.

The little moogle was in his usual look-out spot, perched out of reach for any monster half-way up the mooring chain, where he always sat with surprising ease in spite of the sharp slope. Vaan was incredibly grateful to see him start at the shout, and immediately start flying up to the entrance of the ship without wasting time to wonder what Vaan was doing there.

Vaan reached the line himself a moment later, and began scrambling up it hand over hand, the muscles in his arms straining as he struggled to pull himself up as quickly as possible. He was almost out of reach when something caught his foot, holding it fast, but he refused to look back. He didn't _want_ to know how many of the dead men had gathered beneath him; he knew that if he did he wouldn't be able to keep from imagining the way they'd tear him to shreds if he fell down into the horde. Nobody could ever accuse Vaan of being a coward, but that was a mental picture even the bravest man in the world would shy away from.

All he could do in his position was kick his leg as hard as he could and redouble his efforts to climb quickly. For a heart-stopping moment he wasn't getting anywhere, then with a sound half-squelch half-tear he suddenly came loose.

The fact that the hand was still clenched tightly around his ankle even though he was now moving upwards without any trouble was something else he didn't want to think about. At least it wasn't _doing_ anything, so he could climb freely the rest of the way. Once the danger was behind him and he could just concentrate on climbing it felt a little like old times; Vaan hadn't picked up Balthier's habit of always keeping the ship hovering so it would be ready for a quick getaway, his own lack of notoriety and decent relationships with the people in charge of pretty much any place he might want to visit making him feel at ease just finding a flat place to land and conserve fuel while it was under his care, so it had been ages since the last time he'd needed to climb to enter it.

Soon enough he was dragging himself through the hatch into the belly of the airship. The first thing he did was twist around to yank the hand from his ankle, his face screwing up with disgust when he saw the the whole arm up to the shoulder was still attached to it. The minute he freed himself its fingers began clasping at the empty air, the whole thing bending and twisting at the wrist and elbow as it tried to find anything to attack. "That's just _gross_," he said, and tossed the writhing thing back out the hatchway to plummet to the ground.

Finally he just let himself collapse panting to the floor.

"It's so nice to see you again, Vaan," Nono said, like they hadn't seen each other in ages instead of just a couple of days, "but what are you doing here, kupo?"

"You work for _jerks_ who need to figure out that they can't just sneak off without even saying 'Hi' to their friends after going missing for a year, that's what I'm doing here," Vaan said looking at Nono from the corner of his eye as he swiped the sweat from his forehead.

"Kupopo..." Nono chirped sympathetically. "But, Vaan, the bosses... the bosses might have a good reason for why they didn't want anyone to see them..." Vaan was no expert in reading moogle facial expressions, but he was pretty sure that the look on Nono's face could only be described as 'shifty'.

"Yeah, well, tough luck for them. Serves them right for doing that." He looked around, noticing that the hoverbike was missing. "Where are they anyway? You wouldn't have been out keeping watch if they were around, right?"

"They went to buy supplies. Balthier wasn't very happy when he saw how empty the supply room was, kupo!"

"Hey, it's not like _we_ lived here. He should've realized we wouldn't keep it stocked up as much as he and Fran do," Vaan said, frowning, then shoved himself to his feet. "Look, I'm gonna go wait in the control room. You can tell them I'm there when they get back. ...Or don't, and we can see how _they_ like being surprised."

"You know I can't keep it from the bosses, kupo," Nono said, chiding. "I want to be able to keep working on this ship."

"Yeah, yeah, fine. Be on their side," Vaan called over behind him, already leaving the room.

He took the pilot's seat when he reached the cockpit, figuring that he had the right to wait there at least, even if the ship wasn't his to fly anymore. He did consider changing that for a minute--considered tossing a note out onto the Deadlands, _maybe_ being nice enough to stick it to a piece of glowing magicite so it'd be easier to spot, then vanishing with the Strahl as silently as they had--but he quickly decided against it. He wanted to _see_ Balthier a hell of a lot more than he wanted to get into some stupid game of one-upmanship with him.

Anyway, he knew to a gut level that the ship wasn't his anymore. It was strange, he could see the marks he'd left on it during the year it had been his--here the small dent on the pilot's armrest in the spot where he always leaned on his elbow while flying, there a crack the muzzle of his gun had left in the glass covering a gauge when he'd banged into it a little too hard--but it was like a switch had been flipped somewhere in his head, and suddenly all the little nicks and marks had gone from being signs that the Strahl was his ship to being things he hoped Balthier won't bitch at him about until they'd had a chance to catch up.

But that didn't mean that he didn't still have his place on the Strahl, even if it wasn't as captain. If Balthier thought for some reason that he was just going to let it go, he had another thing coming.

He caught sight of the bike as it came back to the Strahl, although it was too far away and the angle too awkward as it went under the airship for him to get a good look at the two people riding it. He grinned at the thought that for once, even if it was just for the few minutes until they talked to Nono, _he_ was the one getting the drop on _them_. For the first time since that night in the palace's treasure room he got to be the one who knew more than Balthier.

He tried to look cool and casual as he waited for them to come and find him; leaning back in the chair, staring out the window like he couldn't even be bothered to watch the door for them, doing his best to look like he'd been shaped into a great sky pirate over the past year. Or at least like he didn't feel about ready to vomit from nervousness, his heart caught in his throat as he did his best to decide once and for all whether the first thing he wanted to do to Balthier was give him a kiss or a slug in the gut.

He soon heard the familiar sound of footsteps echoing dully from the metal floors of the hall leading to the cockpit door, and tried not to tense. Instead he focused on the realization that something didn't sound _quite_ right about those footsteps, frowning slightly as he tried to figure out what it was instead imagining what was about to happen.

Balthier--it _had_ to be Balthier, Vaan told himself, not just wishful thinking making him assume it would be; Fran wouldn't walk so heavily--didn't seem in any rush to reach him, giving Vaan plenty of time to work on the puzzle before he finally heard the door behind him slide open.

There was a long moment of silence before Balthier finally said, "Vaan. Well, this isn't what I was expecting when Nono told us we had an unexpected visitor."

And suddenly, even after so much time spent waiting, and hoping, and dreaming, Vaan did _not_ want to turn around and face him, because he'd just realized what had seemed off about Balthier's steps. There had been an extra sound hidden in them, one that was familiar to Vaan from time spent around the Marquis Ondore. For the first time Vaan was struck by a thought he'd never even considered before; that, for all that it had always seemed to turn out that way in the past, either death or walking away perfectly healthy weren't the only two possible results of being peril. That Balthier and Fran could have survived the crash of the Bahamut, but not come out of it unscathed. After a full year spent holding the mental picture of how Balthier had looked the last time Vaan had seen him close to his thoughts, it was a little frightening to think that he might not be exactly the same as ever.

But Vaan had traveled across most of the continent just to see Balthier again. He had run like the wind across the Deadlands, a place most people would have considered him mad to go alone, just for this moment. He wasn't going to chicken out now, and so he turned around.

It was better than Vaan had suddenly begun to fear, but worse than he would have hoped. His eyes shot to Balthier's legs first, to confirm his suspicions about what he'd heard. The cane Balthier leaned on seemed much too simple for his tastes, just dark, well-polished, wood without any ornamentation, but his pants hid any sign of whatever leg injury made it necessary.

What Vaan saw when he dragged his eyes upwards wasn't nearly as ignorable. The right side of Balthier's face had been ravaged by fire, the worst of the scaring along his jawline starting just below his ear, but there were more in streaks and splotches of uneven, discolored, flesh, across his cheek and chin, and down his neck to disappear beneath his shirt. It could probably be considered lucky that the fire had missed his mouth and his eye and only intruded a tiny bit into his hairline, but it was hard for Vaan to think that at his first sight of what had happened to that handsome face.

When Vaan finally met Balthier's eyes, he saw that they were searching. Whatever Balthier found in his face apparently didn't please him, although Vaan didn't know what he could possibly have seen other than understandable shock, for a moment later his expression grew shuttered. "If you're here seeking to reclaim the Strahl," he said when it became clear Vaan was at a loss for words, "you would have done well to take it before we returned, although you'd soon have found that Nono knows how to wield a wrench against hijackers. Fran and I have no intention of returning her to you."

Vaan stared at Balthier in disbelief before blurting out, "Are you kidding? Of course that's not why I'm here!" He shoved himself out of the chair and stepped up to Balthier. His hand curled itself into a fist and rose as he walked, but in the end instead of lashing out he just let it thump heavily onto Balthier's shoulder and left it there. Now that they were standing in front of one and other he couldn't even work up his righteous anger anymore. He just deeply sad at how Balthier had chosen to slip away, and he ducked his head to keep Balthier from seeing the way it made his face screw up. "We've been waiting for you for a _year_, you asshole. How could you come to get the Strahl and not wait around long enough to see us?"

Vaan briefly thought that Balthier was finally softening. The man's hand come up to rest on the back of his head for just a moment, his fingertips curling into Vaan's hair. But then he pulled it away again, so quickly that Vaan might have thought he'd imagined the touch if his whole body hadn't felt like it was attuned to Balthier's every movement. "Did you and Penelo read the note I left, or simply admire my handwriting?" he asked, his voice as distantly amused as if their relationship had been rewound back to the first day they'd met. Vaan was starting to get the feeling that he was missing something. "If you had, you'd know that Fran and I are after a treasure. We had no time to spare on playing catch up, or someone else might steal our prize."

Vaan finally looked up again to frown at him, not buying that explanation for an instant. "Did you totally forget that I've been a sky pirate too for the last year? If there was that big a rush for this Cask of Glados thing--"

"Cache of Glabados," Balthier corrected.

"Yeah, whatever. If there were really a bunch of people after it, I would have heard about it too."

"I see that a year's not been long enough for you to begin to realize that there are routes of information which remain closed to newcomers in our profession." He ignored the way Vaan beamed at hearing him acknowledge that he had become a real sky pirate too and turned away from him, finally breaking the contact of Vaan's hand against his shoulder. "Come along then. As long as you're here, Fran will want to see you."

Vaan stared after him blankly for a minute as he walked out into the hallway, only snapping out of it when he had to move to keep the door from sliding shut. It was only just dawning on him that along with the lack of punching there was apparently going to be no kissing, no embracing, not even a friendly arm clasp to start making up for a year with no contact. "Wait a minute, _that's it?_" he yelled after Balthier, in outraged disbelief.

Balthier ignored him completely.


	7. Chapter Six

Fran proved to be far less marked by whatever had happened to them since the last time Vaan had seen them than Balthier was. Somehow Vaan found it weirder to see that at some point her hair had been shorn shorter than Ashe's, fluffing out wildly around her head in loose feathery curls since she'd removed her helmet in the safety of the Strahl, than it was when he noticed that she'd lost almost half of one of her ears. The cut was so clean that he imagined it must have been a ragged mess to start with, and they'd decided to take a dagger to it rather than leave the end in shreds. He couldn't believe that a fight or an accident would have left it sliced off in a dead-straight line anyway.

His annoyance with the way Balthier was acting only grew when even _she_ was more obviously affectionate than he was being, squeezing his shoulders briefly as she examined him in what he thought might just have been the longest unnecessary contact she'd ever had with him. It wouldn't even have mattered to him if she hadn't touched him at all of course; he'd only ever met one Viera whom he'd call a touchy-feely person, and she was probably off searching for her gagillionth possible soulmate by then.

With Fran, even if she'd never looked up from unpacking the supplies they'd brought while she talked to him Vaan wouldn't have been bothered. He would have known that she wasn't angry or upset with him for some reason, that she still considered him as much of a friend as he'd ever been. But with Balthier it was different, and it became more and more clear as the day went on that _something_ was wrong between them, but Vaan had no idea what and it was enough to drive him nuts. The only time things had felt even close to normal between them had been when Vaan bugged them into going to pick up his chocobo and Balthier had groused about how it would make his ship smell like a farmyard.

By the time night fell Vaan was fighting down the urge to jump on the man and bang his head into a wall until he just admitted to whatever his problem was. Even if it turned out that, with a year to clear his head, Balthier had decided that he didn't want to be saddled with a dirty orphan boy after all, it would be a lot easier if he just said it instead of trying to reboot their relationship--even just their _friendship_--back to the level it had been at when they'd first met. But Vaan couldn't believe that that was really the problem; he refused to believe that a man he respected could be a big enough coward not to just come out and say that he wasn't interested.

Which left him just as clueless about what was going on when he went to bed that night as he had been when he first saw Balthier.

He wished that he could ask Penelo for advice. He knew that he really should write her to let her know that he was okay anyway, but what would he say? _Dear Penelo, sorry I didn't grab you before taking off, but I always kind've thought that the second I had Balthier alone after taking down Vayne he'd be pounding me into the nearest wall to celebrate, and I didn't want anyone else around when we started making up for lost time. But instead he's acting like a jerk for no reason, got any idea why he'd do that?_

He'd die of embarrassment before he could send anything like that.

It wasn't like it was totally true anyway. Honestly, he'd only thought that they'd end up really having sex for about half-an-hour before Balthier went and got himself heroically trapped in an explosion-filled air fortress. Up until then he'd always figured that what they had would never be more than hurried handjobs and stress relief. Sure, Vaan had wound up passing out in the captain's bed every night once they switched from walking everywhere to using the Strahl, and as far as he'd known Balthier had never even tried to kick him out (although he knew he was a heavy enough sleeper that Balthier might just have given up on trying to wake him up long enough to do it), but that hadn't been enough to make him think there was anything serious going on. Vaan wasn't an _idiot_; he'd learned years ago that you just had to enjoy the good things as you got them, but not expect them to be along for too long.

That belief had only changed after taking down Gabranth on the Bahamut. Although they'd all known that they didn't have much time to spare, not with the resistance still waiting outside for them, they had decided to take a rest then at the nearest antechamber. Ostensibly it had been to patch up their wounds so that they would be in as close to peak condition as they could get themselves before they reached Vayne, but they'd all quietly known that they were giving Basch a moment in case he needed to collect himself after seeing what a mess his twin had become.

Balthier had made some excuse for them to leave that Vaan had paid absolutely no attention to--probably something about standing guard since they were less injured than most of the others--then they'd taken off before anyone else even had a chance to argue against splitting up if they'd wanted to.

They hadn't gone far enough really, just around a corner and down a length of hall, still close enough that they could hear it when Penelo laughed loudly at something one of the other's said, but the combination of adrenaline and anticipation had been too much for them to resist long enough to find somewhere more private. All at once Balthier had slammed Vaan against the wall even as Vaan dragged him forward by his shirtfront, there in the middle of the hallway where anyone could have stumbled over them. The kiss had been hard and desperate, both of them fully aware if things went badly against Vayne it would most likely be their last. Vaan had cut the inside of his lip on one of his teeth at the force of it, a small nick that he'd ended up chewing and worrying at for weeks afterwards in an attempt to keep that one last sign of Balthier on him from fading away.

The kiss only lasted as long as it took Balthier to shove Vaan's pants down around his thighs and take him in hand, then the man dropped to his knees in front of him while Vaan gaped down at him. "Wait, what--" was all Vaan had time to say before he'd had to shove his fist in his mouth to keep from crying out when Balthier leaned forward to rest his lips on him, a soft pressure that couldn't even really be called a kiss, then sucked him slowly in.

Vaan's legs had almost gone out from under him right then; he'd only managed to lock his knees and scramble with his free hand for purchase on the smooth wall behind him because he _knew_ Balthier would mock him about it forever if he toppled over. He never would have admitted that he'd even _imagined_ Balthier doing something like that to him before, and he definitely had never thought it would ever happen outside of his imagination.

It was crossing a line that had been there ever since that first night in the hotspring, at least in his own mind. As long as they stuck to just hands, and kisses so rough that he couldn't imagine giving one to a girl, he could tell himself that whatever they had between them didn't really matter. They were just buddies, helping each other out when they got tired of their own fists.

Sure, he could never imagine doing the same thing with any of his _other_ guy friends, but most of them hadn't hit puberty yet.

If he'd ever been asked, maybe he would have admitted that he didn't really _want_ it not to matter. That maybe he would have liked it if it turned out to matter a lot. But Balthier was one hell of a sky pirate, a former aristocrat, and a man who'd had so many conquests that Vaan had heard hints of rumors about them almost everywhere. It was laughable to think he'd be interested in any real relationship with a dirty tagalong kid--especially a _guy_--who by all rights should have been a Lowtown slum brat if Migelo hadn't liked him enough to let him sleep over the store. Vaan had decided right from the start that he wasn't going to set himself up for disappointment by expecting anything more.

He never would have guessed that Balthier would be the one to cross over that line. Definitely wouldn't have thought he'd do so in a way that blew past it so completely; admittedly, Vaan didn't have much--any, really--experience, but he was pretty sure that there was no way to justify sucking another guy off as just lending a friendly hand. Or mouth. Especially when he climaxed, much more quickly than his pride would have liked, and Balthier didn't jerk himself away, or spit on the floor, or even look disgusted as he swallowed.

Balthier's mouth tasted salty when he stood to steal another kiss, which Vaan had found a little gross when he thought about it--that came from the same place he _peed_ out of--but if it didn't bother Balthier then he sure didn't have a right to complain about it.

Vaan hadn't even bothered dragging his own pants back up from around his thighs before he began fumbling at Balthier's belt, but before he'd even had a chance to start sliding the end through the buckle Balthier had grabbed his wrist to stop him. "Later, Vaan," he'd said in a low voice, glancing back in the direction they'd come from, towards where their friends were waiting. "They'll be expecting us back shortly. What I want from _you_ will best wait until we have plenty of time on our hands."

There had been a promise in his eyes that Vaan hadn't been able to remember ever seeing there before, and one of his eyebrows had cocked in a silent question; did Vaan understand what he met, and accept it? Vaan's mouth had gone so dry that he'd needed to swallow several times before he could answer, and even then his voice had come out a whispered croak. "Yeah, better wait."

Balthier had flashed him a smile before stepping back, breaking contact between them completely. "See if you can compose yourself quickly. And try not to let anyone see that hand of yours when we rejoin the group."

"Huh?" It was only when Vaan glanced down that he saw just how clearly the bite marks he'd left on the hand he'd chewed on to keep himself silent stood out in his skin. "Oh, um, right."

That had been it for conversation. They'd returned to the others, Vaan's nervousness about the fight ahead overwhelmed by anticipation over what was going to come after it. Then Balthier had snuck off to sacrifice himself to keep Rabanastre safe, and that promise had never been fulfilled.

And now, Vaan had to wonder if maybe it had never existed to begin with. Maybe he'd misread Balthier's intentions back then. Maybe he'd been right about how little their relationship meant right up until that last little moment, and he'd ended up latching onto a mistake for a full year. Hell, maybe Balthier had just been making a joke about having more stamina than Vaan, and he'd been a complete idiot to think Balthier had been asking for anything more.

He didn't like to even think that. He couldn't believe that he'd have misunderstood Balthier that badly after how long they'd spent traveling back and forth across Ivalice together.

But if Balthier wanted them to go back to being nothing more than friends for some reason, fine. Vaan didn't like it, and he wouldn't be happy about it, but they'd worked just fine as friends in the past and could again. And being friends was a hell of a lot better than not having Balthier around at all.

Besides, if things progressed the same way they had the first time around, being friends could always once again lead to something more.


	8. Chapter Seven

Vaan would have guessed that he was the first one up the next morning. After all, he hadn't actually slept so much as had occasional brief periods of his brain shutting down in-between long periods of lying around trying to really drift off before finally giving up altogether when the sun started to rise.

But when he staggered sleepily through the ship and into the cockpit, not having anywhere better to go, he discovered that Balthier was already there. He stopped dead in his tracks, their positions mirrored from when Balthier had been similarly startled at the sight of him the day before.

Balthier didn't seem to have noticed him coming in, too absorbed in pouring over a map in the early morning light. Vaan took Balthier's distraction as an opportunity to stare openly at the changes to his features. The scars really weren't that bad, for burns, aside from the one below his ear. Vaan had known a few unfortunate former soldiers who had gotten caught in blasts from imperial ships from just barely far enough away to survive, and it was difficult to look at them without thinking that they'd have been better off if they had been standing just a little bit closer. Some of them had faces that looked like they'd _melted_; Balthier looked outright pretty by comparison. They were mostly noticeable because of their vivid color, each splotch of scar tissue raised and reddish-brown in a way the eye couldn't ignore even from a distance.

"Are you through gawking yet?" Balthier asked, though he hadn't given a sign before then that he'd even noticed Vaan was there.

"Yeah, I guess," Vaan said, and walked over to lean against the back of Balthier's chair and look at the map he was examining. It wasn't of any place that Vaan recognized, and he was quickly distracted by Balthier's cane leaning against his armrest. He reached out to grab it just under the knob at the top, idly spinning it back and forth in his grip with his thumb. "What happened to your leg anyway?" he asked, then bristled at the look Balthier shot up at him. "_What?_ Like you _wouldn't_ be curious? Come on."

Balthier finally sighed, and put his map down. "Let's just say that you should take a lesson from it; never attempt to set a broken bone on your own. Or, if you must, be sure to take it to a doctor before it has a chance to heal badly."

Vaan stared at him. "You're kidding me."

"I'm afraid not."

"That is _really_ dumb, Balthier," Vaan said, moving to the chair beside Balthier and plopping down into it while still staring at him disbelievingly. "I mean, even _I_ know that's dumb, and Penelo practically has to drag me to get me to go to the doctor every time I really need one. I know walking on a broken leg sucks, but you couldn't have sucked it up long enough to get to somebody who knew what they were doing before it started going back together wrong? The Bahamut was only, like, fifteen miles away from the city!"

Balthier squeezed his eyes shut and pinched the bridge of his nose tightly, like he was trying to fight off a headache. "Fifteen miles through a desert, and the monsters within it, with next to no supplies, while in a state of constant agony and dragging a Viera as Fran received a head injury in the crash that left her unconscious for... long enough to get very worrying. Flattering though it is to know you believe I have the fortitude for such a journey, it remained beyond me for longer than I care to remember."

Vaan could tell that Balthier wasn't happy with this topic, and quickly decided to change the subject now that he had his answer. "So, is that the map for the place you think the Cache is at? Where is that anyway?"

"Honestly, Vaan, did you retain nothing from the note I left?" He flipped the map back up, turning it so Vaan could look at it again. "This is Bervenia. We believe that the Cache is hilly section to the north-east, but we hope to pin down a more precise estimate of its location before going in now that we can travel freely to gather information again."

Looking at the map, Vaan hoped they could too. The 'hilly area' Balthier mentioned took up a good quarter of the land, and if they went in with no other clues about where it could be and their luck ran bad they could spend _ages_ searching those hills without ever finding anything.

"Hey, if you need to head back to Rabanastre when you're doing that information gathering, could we _not_ stop to pick up Penelo? I sorta think she might kill me the next time we see each other."

"Pardon? I don't seem to recall inviting you to join us."

"The good thing about friends is that you don't need to ask for help when you need it!" Vaan said, flashing him a cheeky grin. "Anyway, I've gotten good at sky pirating! I mean, I don't get to do all that much actual _pirating_, but it's not _my_ fault that we kept making friends with the leaders of places so I wouldn't feel right stealing from them."

"You've become especially close friends with the Rozarrian royal family since last we met, from what Fran and I have heard," Balthier said, returning his attention to the route planning he'd been doing when Vaan came in. "Rumors of your dalliances with one of the princesses even reached us."

"Huh?" Vaan asked, before he realized what Balthier was getting at. "Oh! You mean Rabia, right? Boy, was that embarrassing." He leaned forward toward Balthier, excited to be the one with a story to tell for a change. "Penelo and I went there with Ashe to be her bodyguards, since she doesn't have many soldiers who aren't either brand new or out of practice and we weren't going to trust any of _them_ with keeping her safe. I mean, Al-Cid's fine and all, but we didn't know if his family would be the same way, you know? So we get there, and it turns out that Al-Cid's told everyone stories about everything that happened to all of us, and somehow one of his baby sisters decided that she has a giant crush on me."

"It must have been flattering, to know you'd caught the eye of a princess," Balthier said flatly, marking something that didn't make any sense to Vaan on the map.

"You'd think so, but not really. I mean, it's kind've hard to care that much when Ashe and Larsa are worth ten of any other royal person I've met each, you know? Anyway, she was just a kid. It was like having Filo following me around. It would've been fine if it had stayed like that, but then her dad stuck his nose in." Vaan made a face when he remembered what had happened next. "He called this meeting with Ashe, and told her that if she just granted me some land and a title he'd be glad to marry Rabia off to one of the 'saviors of Ivalice'. Turns out that Rozarria has a _bunch_ of princes and princesses, and after Gramis went around overthrowing every little nation he could get his hands on there aren't enough living nobles left around to marry them all off to. Rabia's _way_ down the list--she's only the sixth daughter and her mom was a concubine instead of a wife besides--so he decided that as long as they called me a earl or something one of the people who everyone knows killed Vayne would be good enough. Can you imagine me as an earl? It's the dumbest idea in the world."

He slumped back in his chair and raked his hand through his hair, his cheeks starting to burn with remembered embarrassment at being haggled over like he was some type of commodity. "Penelo was lucky; _she_ got to excuse herself as soon as he'd explained his plan, and she was still laughing herself sick by the time we finally got back to our rooms. All _I_ could do then was sit around with my mouth shut while Ashe did the talking because I'm no good at diplomacy. You wouldn't believe how afraid I got that she'd agree to it when he started hinting that he'd stop pushing for her to get married to one of his sons to 'improve diplomatic relations between our two countries' for awhile. Then I felt like a giant jerk about hating the idea so much because she _is_ a sweet kid, and the king was being way nicer than you'd think he'd be... though I kinda think he was just happy that he might be getting one of his kids out of the house. Palace."

"My, how the lowly have risen," Balthier said, and the strange distance Vaan had noticed the day before was back in his voice again. "Nothing more than a common thief when we met, and now look at you; almost betrothed to a princess."

"Almost ran screaming from the country if Ashe had decided to go along with marrying me to her, you mean." He shoved himself to his feet with more force than necessary, the thud of his shoes against the floor echoing dully through the room. His voice rose as he went on, though he struggled to keep it below a yell so there'd be no risk of him waking Fran. "Even if I didn't think having a little girl for a wife would be insanely creepy--and, I don't care what royalty thinks, it _is_--_I_ never forgot that I wasn't available to begin with, even if it looks like certain other people have." When Balthier didn't make any immediate response, Vaan closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and forced himself to calm down. This wasn't the way he wanted things to go between them. His temper found, he leaned over the back of Balthier's chair again and clasped the man's shoulder, careful to make sure that the contact couldn't be mistaken as anything but friendly. He blinked when Balthier's entire body seemed to jerk for a split second at the touch, but didn't comment on it. "I'm gonna go find something for breakfast. It _is_ nice to get to talk to you again, Balthier, even if I kinda hoped it would be going a little differently. Really."

And then he turned and left.


	9. Chapter Eight

"Are you _ever_ gonna tell me where we're going?" Vaan asked, following closely in Balthier and Fran's footsteps as they wove their way through a close-pressed maze of people a week and a half later.

"Not in the open," Fran replied in a low voice.

They were in a large system of caves near the Cerobi Steppe that had been turned into something like the Muthru Bazaar on a much, _much_, larger scale. Everywhere Vaan looked there were stalls set up, the contents of most of them clearly stolen or otherwise illegal. It was like some type of smuggler's paradise, and he'd never even heard the tiniest whisper about its existance before.

He suspected that the people who had started it were pirates from nearby Balfonheim who hadn't been happy with Reddas' rule and weren't content with just sitting around in out-of-the-way houses complaining about the way he did things. Or maybe they'd been kicked out completely. It had a similar atmosphere to the pirate port, but felt much more wild. The most obvious difference was that in Balfonheim Vaan had never feared for his possessions even though he'd known he was surrounded by outlaws. Reddas wouldn't have dealt kindly with any pirates stealing from one and other within the town's borders, and Rikken and the others were keeping his laws alive.

In the caves Vaan had already had to smack away the hands of five attempted pick-pocketers, and kicked another hard in the back of the knee when he spotted him sneaking up on Balthier. That had apparently been enough to convince people that he wasn't just some easy mark, and it had been awhile since the last attempt. Now it was just the vendors trying to rob him blind, by convincing him to buy horribly overpriced goods.

"You, boy!" one Seeq called out to him, grabbing his arm before he had a chance to dodge. "You use guns, yes? But that one, much too weak, much to slow. Try one of mine instead! You will never want to touch that one again."

"Uh, no thanks. I'm good," Vaan said, yanking himself away and doing a quick check of his things to make sure the weapons merchant hadn't grabbed more than just his arm. "What _is_ it with people trying to make me change weapons lately?" he asked rhetorically as he rejoined Balthier and Fran before they could get far without him.

"You would be wise to do so," Balthier told him. "That's my old Altair, is it not?"

"Mine now," Vaan said, cradling it protectively to his chest. "You left it, I took it, fair and square."

"I wasn't seeking to reclaim it," Balthier said dryly, and though Vaan couldn't see his face he had the feeling that the man was rolling his eyes. "That Seeq was right about it being far too weak; you'd have been better bringing a different weapon. Whatever happened to that gaudy sword of yours?"

"The Tournesol's been in storage for a year. Altair's worked just fine for me since then. I've got the best ammo you can buy in it, and there was this moogle doing modifications in the bazaar for awhile who made it more powerful." He glanced around lowered his voice. "Uh, don't mention that when you see Ashe or Larsa again. Some of the things he did aren't _totally_ legal."

"No need to whisper of that here," Fran said, shooting him a mild glance.

"But my point stands," Balthier said. "There's only so much that can be done with a weapon that wasn't that good to begin with. Unless this moogle of yours was a miracle worker, I can't imagine that your sword wouldn't serve you better. There is a point where sentimentality crosses the line into foolishness, Vaan."

"Fine, so I'm a sentimental fool. I'm still sticking with your gun."

Balthier seemed to decide that it wasn't worth continuing the argument with someone who was being so bullheaded. After a moment Fran glanced at him, then fell back to Vaan's side.

Without an explanation, and softly enough that it was for Vaan's ears only, she said, "He smiles."


	10. Chapter Nine

The information dealer it turned out they were in the caves to see, a wizened moogle woman who had an air of knowing _everything_ that reminded Vaan of Old Dalan, turned out not to be much help. She gave them directions to some church that she claimed might have a more exact idea of where the Cache was, and let them know that, while nobody else had come to her looking for information about it, she _had_ heard whisperings of the name 'Glabados' here and there, but that was all she had to offer.

Vaan thought that Balthier hadn't needed to look so smug at the confirmation that other people really were after the treasure and Vaan just hadn't heard about it.

By the time they got back to the Strahl, Vaan felt like his body had developed a fine covering of scum. He'd never spent so long in a place so packed full of people before; the next time he overheard a tourist complaining about how crowded Rabanastre was he'd be tempted to give them directions straight to the caves so they'd have a chance to learn what crowded _really_ meant. Worse, the place had stunk of unwashed bodies, smoke from both tobacco and poppies, rotting food from the occasional vender who was lazy about throwing out things that had gone rancid (especially since Seeqs, with their iron stomachs, would buy and happily eat anything that hadn't developed mold or maggots), and a thousand other scents that Vaan hadn't even been able to recognize. The smell of it all seemed to cling to him until he wanted nothing in the world more than a shower; he'd never cared all that much about getting dirty, but _stinking_ was another story entirely.

He couldn't head for it immediately, though. On their way back out of the cave he'd stopped here and there to get Penelo a bunch of trinkets and doodads, with one or two for Ashe as well. He hoped they would help buy him forgiveness for the vanishing act he'd pulled. Before he did anything else he went over each of them in the light to make sure the vendors he'd bought them from hadn't ripped him off, or if they had that they'd at least done so with baubles that would still make nice gifts. He was pretty sure he was safe, since Balthier or Fran had yanked him away every time they'd spotted him heading for a seller who they'd known was a conman, and warned him to be cautious if they knew nothing at all about whoever's wares he was looking at, but it didn't hurt to double check.

It was only after he'd done that, then found a safe place to stash them, that he finally grabbed the spare clothes Balthier had lent him on his second day there and headed down to the small shower room in the belly of the ship.

When he opened the door it was immediately obvious that he'd been beaten to it when he was hit by a burst of steam and the sound of running water. He squinted through the fog, knowing that he was about to be _very_ embarrassed if it turned out that Fran was the one he'd walked in on.

But, like he had hoped, it was Balthier that he made out across the room. The man's back was to him, his head bowed under the spray of hot water, one hand scrubbing at his hair as he used the other to brace himself against the wall under the nozzle and keep some of his weight off his bad leg. It was the first time Vaan had seen him naked in over a year, and he tried to ignore the way his breath caught at the sight.

His eyes found the spot where the scars on Balthier's neck had always disappeared under his collar and followed them down, discovering that the ended just after curling over his shoulder, not marring nearly as much skin as Vaan had feared. He let his eyes keep traveling over that pale, nearly unmarked flesh, not allowing himself to feel ashamed about peeping when he knew this might be the last chance he'd get to stare openly at Balthier's naked body, then he blinked when they reached his left arm.

Though that side of Balthier's face and, from what Vaan could tell from his back, body had been untouched by the flames that had burned the right side, a few inches above his left elbow they started again, worse than all the others and stretching all the way down the rest of the arm.

Vaan had never asked Balthier about his burns. It hadn't seemed worth it after the man had been touchy about explaining what had happened to his leg. It wasn't like there was a big mystery to how he could have gotten burned when the last place Vaan had known him to be was inside a giant airship that kept having parts of itself explode after a madman had swiped a bunch of vital parts from it to make himself a giant dragon-suit. But there had been a few things Vaan had wondered about now and then--why half his face was mostly untouched, why Fran had escaped unburned when Balthier had said she'd been unconscious--and like a burst from the blue he suddenly thought that he knew exactly what had happened.

He was so caught up in his thoughts that he didn't even notice Balthier starting to turn around until it was too late to even try dodging back out the door and pretending that he hadn't been standing there staring. At least it was a little gratifying to see the momentary look of surprise that flashed across Balthier's face before he suppressed it, letting Vaan know that he really had managed to sneak up on him this time. Of course, it would have been _more_ gratifying if it hadn't been an accident.

"Did you need something, Vaan?"

"Uh... shower," Vaan replied, waving the spare outfit he was holding to illustrate what he was saying.

Balthier stepped out of the spray of water and reached for a towel. "I see. Well, I'm done here so I'll leave you to--"

Before he could slip away again, before he could even cover himself up, Vaan cut him off by walking over and grabbing his arm, not caring that he was close enough to the shower now for stray drops to splatter on the clothes he was wearing. "I get it now," he said, smoothing his hand across the scarred skin he held. "You were protecting her, weren't you?"

There was no question of which 'her' he meant.

"Not well enough, as you may have noticed from her ear," Balthier said in confirmation before pulling himself away. "Now, I'll leave you to your shower."

"Or you could stay," Vaan said quickly. He shucked off his shirt and tossed it outside of the reach of the shower's spray, then went to work removing his pants. "Why don't you stay?"

"Don't sell yourself short, Vaan! I'm certain it's safe to credit you with enough wit to shower safely on your own, for all that the the amount of dirt you track into my ship at times suggests otherwise." He gathered his own clothes and cane from where he'd left them and made his way out the door, still only wearing the towel he had wrapped loosely around his hips.

Vaan narrowed his eyes, full of frustration. "What the hell are you so afraid of that makes you keep running away from me?" he yelled after Balthier, then slumped against the wall, knowing by then that he wasn't going to get an answer. He let his head fall back to thump against the tile and covered his face with his hand. "I just don't get it," he said tiredly.

With no more conversation to distract himself, his mind was drawn inevitably back to what he'd been thinking about before Balthier had noticed him there. Now that he'd finally put two and two together he could picture what must have happened to Balthier and Fran in his mind, vividly and horribly.

Balthier, with his leg shattered and Fran out cold, wouldn't have been able to run from the explosions and the fires caused by them any more than he could have crossed the desert once things finally quieted down. His only choice would have been to find someplace to hide until the flames died down. Someplace low to the ground so they could get under the smoke, probably someplace near one of the fortresses ventilation shafts since they didn't end up dying of suffocation anyway.

But the cover it provided must have been imperfect, and _of course_ Balthier would have chosen to give his face to the flames instead of lying the other way. There wouldn't have been much hope left for them at all if their feet had been burnt too badly to walk on. Though probably whatever they'd been under _would_ have been long enough to cover him completely, but Fran was _so tall_...

Vaan could see them clearly. Balthier shielding Fran with his body, the left side of his face pressed into her hair--probably already sliced off almost to the scalp; hair like she'd had would have gone up like an inferno if the fire had hit it--his left arm wrapped tightly around her head. Balthier holding himself steadfast even when the flames drew close, because Fran was in no position to protect herself if he gave in to the desire to pull away.

Balthier burning.

Suddenly the water pouring down on Vaan seemed unbearably hot, and he yanked at the tap until it ran frigid.


	11. Chapter Ten

Night was falling by the time Vaan finished, and Balthier had disappeared into his room. He went looking for Fran instead, and found her sitting by a campfire she'd built outside the ship, tending to some type of stew she had bubbling away in a camp oven.

"Was he worried I'd be jealous when I found out the truth and decided to back away before I could? Is _that_ his problem? Because I'm kinda running out of ideas here!" he asked without any sort of explanation as he threw himself down beside her. "And if that _is_ his problem, he's an idiot. I know I don't need to be jealous of you; it would be like if he was jealous of Penelo!"

Fran just looked at him, and stirred her pot, but he trusted that she understood what he was talking about. He was sure that she had to have the same uncanny partner-sense with Balthier that Penelo had with Vaan himself that made it so she always _knew_ the second he thought somebody looked good.

Well, except for the weird blind spot Penelo had when it came to his feelings about Balthier, but he was pretty sure that that was just because she hadn't figured out yet that he liked guys sometimes too.

"Or is there something different about _me_ that makes it so he doesn't like me any more? I don't _feel_ any different, but I guess I wouldn't notice myself changing, huh?"

Fran sighed and set her ladle aside, and Vaan perked up, able to tell that she was about to impart some of her mysterious Viera wisdom on him.

"Vainer than he'd care to admit, is our Balthier," she said.

Vaan stared at her. "_What?_"

She gave him a look that told him he'd heard what she'd said, and she wasn't planning on giving him anything else yet.

"You can't be telling me that he's been staying away from me because he thinks he's not _pretty_ any more." Vaan leaned forwards and grabbed Fran's shoulders, searching her face to try and find some sign that she was making a joke. "_Tell me_ you're not saying that. That's way stupider than any explanations I thought of, and I came up with some _really_ dumb ideas."

She pulled away from him to take up her ladle again, fill a bowl she had sitting nearby with her stew. "Eat with me. We'll speak."

Vaan would have said that he was a lot less interested in food than he was in answers, but the second after he took a bite for the sake of politeness he started to wolf it down. He'd forgotten what Viera cooking was like in the year since they'd last traveled together. He had no idea how she did it, since as far as he'd ever seen she used the exact same ingredients as everyone else, but everything Fran made tasted fresh and _alive_ in a way no other food ever had.

"You must know, first; Hume medicine is not always good for we Viera," Fran said as she served herself, an apparent non sequitur. "Potions, remedies, battle medicine made for all people will do no harm, but others are not so benign."

"Hume medicine isn't good for everyone, got it," Vaan said, feeling a little insulted that she thought he wouldn't already know that. Even if he couldn't have worked it out on his own, he'd spent years being raised by a Bangaa; more than long enough to pick up that there were some Hume things Migelo couldn't touch for the sake of his health and work out that the same must be true of other species.

"Did Balthier tell you I was injured in Bahamut?" When Vaan nodded, she continued, "Twice, the rubble struck me. The first piece stole my consciousness, the second pinned my ear and would not be moved. Balthier needed to cut me free, and when even his knife did not make me stir he feared me dying. In his fear he forced into me medicine he'd once won by doing a favor for a wood-witch, hoping that her green magics would do my body more good than harm."

"What happened?" Vaan asked, getting drawn into the story in spite of how little it seemed to have to do with what he was really interested in learning. "It can't have been anything that bad, right? I mean, you're obviously okay now."

"I slept," she said simply. "_Long,_ I slept. Balthier tells me I breathed, and swallowed when he poured water or broth into me, but nothing else. A month passed and more before my dreams finally let me free."

"Long enough for his leg to heal wrong..." Vaan said quietly.

"When I woke, Balthier had become older, far more than just the course of time. Pain, solitude, and fear had worked their barbs into him, and pulled away at his youth." She looked down at him seriously. "Vaan, our Balthier has no more room in his heart for a young man's games."

Vaan reeled away from her, stung. "So you mean all that time he was just playing with me?"

She shook her head slightly. "He is not the one he fears was doing the playing."

Somehow that was even worse. "How could he think that? I've been waiting around for him for a _year_! Who does that if they're not serious?"

"He had faith at first, then stories began to reach our ears of the new sky pirate haunting the skies near Rabanastre. We were proud to hear them. Until the rumors began of the pirate and the princess."

"Rabia? But I told him the whole story about how I was totally uninterested in her the day after I got here! If that was all he was worried about, he should have been fine after that."

"Only rumors they may have been, but the next time they begin about some other girl? Or the next?" She gave Vaan a gentle look, and set her bowl aside. "He has always trusted his fair face to keep the attention of those he wishes to hold onto, even when his personality can be trying. Now his trust in himself falters, and he wonders how long it will be before the rumors speak truly."

"Now he has a problem with rumors? Does he have any idea how many times I had to listen to someone who'd dragged me off to ask if that was really him they'd seen give me the 'boy, I wish I were him, I hear he and the ladies, hur hur, ask me to tell you when you're older' speech? _I_ never worried about it, and if I have more self-esteem than he does now that's just _creepy_."

Fran stood in one graceful move and began walking back to the ship. "I've spoken enough. Now it is your place to choose what to do with what you've heard."


	12. Chapter Eleven

Vaan spent five minutes trying to think out a smart and rational plan for how to use the information Fran had given him to win Balthier back.

Then he threw all that out the window and stormed straight to Balthier's room.

"Vaan?" Balthier said, starting to push himself up when his door flew open. Before he could say anything more or get himself into more than a half-sitting position Vaan tackled him back onto the bed, straddling his waist.

"Do you have any idea how _nuts_ I've been going trying to figure out what the hell I did wrong to make you ignore me?" he asked, his head hanging low over Balthier's. "And then I talk to Fran and find out that every time I've called you stupid since I got here I was hitting the nail on the head!"

"Fran said that?" Balthier asked, raising an eyebrow and sounding surprisingly cool for someone in his position.

"She might as well have! She agreed with it anyway. And she basically let me know that she thinks I should be doing this."

He quickly closed the gap between their mouths before Balthier had time to react, but once there he didn't let himself fall into their old pattern of harshness for the sake of denial. He tried to keep his mouth soft, tried to make it the sort of affectionate kiss he'd read about in Penelo's soppy romance novels on the rare times when he'd had absolutely nothing to do with his time but either pick one up or die of boredom. He didn't really have any idea what he was doing--not only had he never really kissed that way before, but Balthier had always been the one who'd guided their kisses in the past--but he figured he couldn't be doing too badly, because after a long, frightening moment Balthier began to respond.

And that was his cue to pull away again, just far enough to give himself enough space to talk. "Okay, listen, here's the plan. _You_ are going to stop being a jerk. And then we're going to start making up for the year we've missed out on, because, in case you haven't noticed, we _have_ plenty of time now for you to get whatever you want from me. After that, I'm going to go grab my stuff and move it in here, and any time either of us hears some stupid rumor about the other we'll know that it's a load of bull because we can't be warming somebody else's bed when we're both in this one. And if you still want more proof that I'm really honestly committed to this, when I drag you to Ashe's coronation in a couple of weeks I'll have them announce me as your date, and for the rest of forever everybody'll know us as those perverted bent pirates the Queen of Dalmasca is friends with. I'll be totally fine with that, even though Ashe would probably kill us for tarnishing her reputation on her big night."

He brought one hand up to Balthier's face, gently tracing the lines of his scars with his fingertips and openly staring at him. Balthier was still so handsome, scar or no scars. Vaan still wanted him so much, enough that it made him want to find a way to horde him like gold. "I can't believe you thought a bum leg and a few scars would be enough to turn me away from you. I know I never said it, but the way I act should make it totally obvious that I _love_ you, you stupid jackass. You don't spend a year pining--yeah, I can admit it! _Pining._--over somebody you don't love! And unless you keep _trying_ to screw it up like you have for the past couple of weeks, you're still gonna be stuck with me when you're old and grey and trying to pretend that you don't need glasses because you're afraid they make you look like your dad!"

Balthier was giving him a distant look again, but it wasn't like the ones Vaan had been getting from him ever since the day they're met up with each other again. It was one he recognized from much longer ago, one that seemed to see straight through him and see the honest truth of his intentions.

And, to complete the mirror of that long ago day, Balthier finally said, "Very well then. If you're certain," and pulled him into another kiss. The repetition was only broken when he murmured against Vaan's mouth, "And I am _never_ going to need glasses. Don't even suggest such a thing again."

Vaan snickered, even as he began to sneak a hand under the bottom of Balthier's shirt. "See? The denial's starting already."

o 0 O 0 o

It was much much later. The room was entirely dark, the ship silent, and sleep was only evading Vaan because Balthier kept stroking a hand down his bare spine, petting him like he was a giant cat. "Vaan?"

"Mmph?"

"I hope that you're aware that your feelings _are_ returned."

Vaan snorted and rolled more onto his side, flopping one arm across Balthier's stomach. "I figured _that_ out as soon as I was sure you hadn't just lost interest in me. Plus, Fran pretty much said so."

"She did, did she?"

"Uh-huh."

"Would this be during the same conversation where she told you I was stupid, and advised you to kiss me?"

"That's right."

"Vaan, are you entirely certain that you were speaking to _Fran_ and not some figment of your imagination?"

Vaan snuggled down closer to him and closed his eyes, reaching for sleep. "Balthier," he said with a yawn, "you really need to learn how to read between the lines."


End file.
